I recently had a meeting with a VP of a top PR firm in New York to see how I
might tap its eminent list of clients for intelligence in future stories. When
I mentioned that postal-themed stories were very popular among readers of Direct
Marketing News, she pursed her lips in puzzlement and said, “Really?”
I explained that, indeed, though marketers take advantage of all the magic that
digital methods provide them, direct mail remains an important weapon in many
campaigns. The puzzled look remained fixed on her face.
“Don't you get direct mail from Macy's or some other favorite retailer as
well as emails from them?” I asked her. “Don't you get catalogs?” “Yeah, I guess I do,” she said.
“And are any of those catalogs still lying somewhere around your apartment for further reference?”
“Yeah, they are.”
“And the emails? Do you regularly consult them?”
“I guess not.”
If direct mail has become an invisible marketing channel among marketing insiders, what about outsiders like, say, the members of the House of Representatives who will soon sit in judgment over whether remote sellers like catalogers will be compelled to pay state sales taxes in all the states and municipalities where their customers live? A few weeks ago, when the National Retail Federation (NRF) was in Washington recognizing 136 legislators as “Heroes of Main Street” for supporting the that will mandate remote tax collection, Lou Geisler and some other concerned catalogers were knocking on doors on Capitol Hill.
